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The Knicks’ first NBA championship in 53 years had a local flavor.

Traded deadline acquisition Jose Alvarado, a Brooklyn native, offered his Christ the King in Middle Village, Queens coach a moment of reflection nearly a decade after the freshly minted champ played for him.

“I wasn’t thinking in this picture that Alvarado would one day win an NBA Championship. I was probably telling him to stop sneaking into the corner and get back on defense,” Joe Arbitello wrote on Instagram. “Proud is an understatement. This kid is a product of doing things the right way.”

Arbitello described some of the characteristics that make Alvarado such a successful player, noting his loyalty was notable, as he stayed at Christ the King and played for just one AAU team throughout his amateur career in what is a rarity, especially in this era.

The loyalty extended to his college decision, as he picked and stuck with Georgia Tech for his entire college career.

Another trait described by Arbitello was that whenever he was on the bench, Alvardo was always engaged in the game and never moped.

The coach recalled the young point guard telling him from the bench that he was “getting paid to have the best seat in the house.”

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That quote proved somewhat prophetic as Alvarado became one of the Knicks’ first bench options after coming over from the Pelicans on Feb. 5.

His addition proved critical to the team’s championship run as he drained critical three-pointers during comebacks in Games 4 and 5 and gave star Jalen Brunson crucial rest by playing quality minutes. 

Now, Christ the King, which boasts the likes of Lamar Odom, Jayson Williams, Speedy Claxton, Sue Bird, Chamique Holdsclaw and Tina Charles among its alumni, has another NBA champion among its graduates.

The New York Knicks waited 53 years to raise another championship banner. When the moment finally arrived Saturday night, Jalen Brunson delivered the type of performance that cements legacies.

Victor Wembanyama, meanwhile, left many talking about something entirely different.

Following New York’s five-game NBA Finals victory over the San Antonio Spurs, longtime broadcaster Dan Patrick offered a blunt assessment of how the two superstars handled the spotlight.

“I think Wemby got exposed in a variety of ways here,” Patrick said. “I think he came off as petty. I think he came off occasionally as a guy who would give a cheap shot. I didn’t like sort of how he ended the series. Go find Jalen Brunson. I mean, Jalen Brunson was all class.”

Patrick’s criticism stems less from Wembanyama’s performance and more from how he carried himself during the series.

The Spurs star faced scrutiny for several heated exchanges with Knicks players, including Mitchell Robinson, a controversial shove on Jalen Brunson and criticism after leaving the floor without the same visible postgame sportsmanship that Brunson displayed.

While many viewed those moments as the frustration of a 22-year-old superstar learning on the biggest stage, Patrick saw them as signs that Wembanyama’s maturity and leadership still have room to grow.

To Patrick, the contrast with Brunson could not have been sharper.

As the final seconds ticked away in New York’s 94-90 championship-clinching victory, Brunson first sought out Spurs coach Mitch Johnson for a handshake before joining his teammates in celebration. It was a small gesture, but one that reinforced the reputation Brunson has built throughout his rise from overlooked free agent signing to Finals MVP.

The Knicks star backed up that sportsmanship with one of the greatest championship performances in franchise history. Brunson scored 45 points in Game 5, tying Michael Jordan for the most points ever scored on the road in a Finals-clinching victory. He finished the series averaging 32.6 points and earned a unanimous Finals MVP vote.

Wembanyama’s production was impressive as well. The 22-year-old averaged 27.8 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.3 blocks during the series while leading San Antonio to the Finals in just his third NBA season.

But several analysts pointed to flaws in his offensive game that became apparent late in the series. Yahoo Sports’ Kevin O’Connor noted Wembanyama’s struggles creating his own shot, his tendency to settle for jumpers and moments where veteran Knicks center Mitchell Robinson physically overwhelmed him around the basket.

None of that changes Wembanyama’s enormous long-term potential. He finished third in MVP voting and helped guide the Spurs to 62 wins and a Western Conference title.

Still, as Patrick noted, the Finals became a reminder that talent alone isn’t enough.

Brunson left the series with a championship, a Finals MVP trophy and praise for his leadership.

Wembanyama left with valuable lessons and a long offseason to answer the criticism.

To his credit, Wemby recognizes this as a time of learning, despite not currently understanding what lessons he is learning;

“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment, Wembanyama said during the post-game press conference. “I can’t tell you exactly what the lesson is. But we’re learning from that. I’m learning more than any other time in my life.”

Knicks owner James Dolan’s joke about giving up sex during the NBA playoffs has been revealed.

“I had this idea that maybe you should give up sex for the next 10 weeks,” Dolan told the Knicks before the playoffs on Apr. 3. “You don’t have to give up sex for the next 10 weeks, but like Spartans — do you know what Spartans are? — they denied themselves to gain an edge. Get the edge.”

The joke was part of a 15-minute surprise speech Dolan gave to the Knicks about making sacrifices to end the Knicks’ 53-year title drought.

Dolan, who oversaw the Knicks in 1999, told players to tell their significant others and family members about the commitment they would bring to the NBA Finals and that they, too, would need to make sacrifices to win.

“Go home, talk to your wives. Don’t tell them you’re not going to have sex, and don’t tell them it was my idea,” Dolan said. “But let them know what this is going to be like, what your commitment is going to be like.”

According to SNY, the players “were a little surprised, but the words hit.”

They were certainly memorable to at least some of them as Mikal Bridges referenced the no-sex joke during an Instagram live on Monday, calling Dolan a “savage” for the gag.

Two months removed from the speech, the sacrifices the Knicks made paid off, as they won their first NBA Finals since 1953.

“Hey, New York, I’m sorry it took so long, but here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again,” Dolan said.

Apparently, Jalen Brunson, the Knicks, and New York fans were not done with Victor Wembanyama.

Less than 24 hours after they beat Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs for their first NBA Championship in 53 years, they were celebrating at Fishfly, a private Manhattan club, Page Six reported. Video from @SMHighlights1 shows The NBA Finals MVP with teammates, family, friends and fans raising a glass with the salute of "(Expletive) Wemby!"

Knicks fans had been saying it for a week.

They started in Game 3 on June 8 after Wembanyama shoved Brunson in the back of the head and pushed him toward the floor with no whistle. Late in the second quarter, when Karl-Anthony Towns was at the line, "(Expletive) you Wemby" rolled down from the Madison Square Garden upper decks and onto the broadcast. The league looked at the shove later and called it a foul, not a flagrant.

Game 5 gave New Yorkers even more fuel to the fire.

Brunson rose for a 3-pointer in the third quarter. Wembanyama closed in, stuck a foot under him, and Brunson came down on top of it. No call. The Knicks bench came unglued at the officials. Had it gone down as a flagrant, however, Wembanyama would have been hit with an automatic suspension and would have missed a possible Game 6.

It didn't matter in the final score. Knicks won 94-90 in San Antonio. Brunson dropped 45, and the Knicks were celebrating their first title since 1973.

Wembanyama didn't hang around to see it. He walked straight off the floor and into the tunnel, looking to forget the Spurs' collapse.

The Knicks and New York will not let him forget.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jalen Brunson, Knicks and fans crush Wemby at party

It’s no secret that the Raptors’ roster has been a contentious topic since the rebuild began in 2024. Bringing on Brandon Ingram has just added more fuel to that fire, with his playoff woes and Toronto’s loss in Game 7 of the first round solidifying the idea that while the Raptors are on the right track, they don’t quite have it all together yet.

The position of RJ Barrett within the team has also been complicated. Taking over as the first option for a chunk of the 2024-25 season with Scottie Barnes out, Barrett was relegated to the third option this year with the arrival of ball-dominant scorer Ingram. However, his playoff rising and the shot heard around the world has caused fans to re-evaluate his position within the roster.

An SB Nation poll showed that above half of Raptors fans feel that RJ Barrett has finally won himself some stability in the Raptors’ organization. With only one more year left on his contract, Barrett’s flexibility had contributed to his position as an important piece in trade talks. But, it seems that the Toronto faithful feel that Barrett should remain on his hometown team as a part of the team’s core, gearing up for next season.

The upcoming campaign has also attracted attention for its high-profile draft class. While the Raptors have only the 19th pick in the draft, Toronto fans are split on whether to focus on acquiring a new big man, or to add more depth to the point guard position.

Jakob Poeltl’s struggles this year have caused a clamouring for the Raptors to bring in someone new at the 5, and SB Nation readers echo this sentiment with their poll responses.

While so much about next season is yet undetermined fans have made their voices heard ahead of the late June draft, where odds for who will get drafted where can be found on FanDuel.

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Newly released 2027 NBA championship odds have the runner-up San Antonio Spurs as the co-favorites with the 2025 champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

Key Takeaways

• The Spurs and Thunder have a combined near-60% probability of winning the Finals.
  
  
• The Celtics are listed ahead of the Knicks as the Eastern Conference favorites.
  
  
• Since 2018, no team has won the championship more than once.

The Thunder and the Spurs spent the majority of 2026 as the championship odds leaders. The Spurs' seven-game upset of the reigning champions in the Western Conference finals made them the heavy favorites over the New York Knicks before the Finals, but they lost in five games.

FanDuel’s +250 odds imply that both teams have a 28.5% chance of lifting the next Larry O’Brien Trophy. This marks the first time since the 2012-13 season that two teams have opened at +250 or shorter, when the Miami Heat and Thunder had the same odds, according to Sports Odds History. 

Interestingly, the Spurs and Thunder both play in the Western Conference. The teams inherently reduce each other's chances of winning the title because only one can reach the Finals.

The 2023-24 champion Boston Celtics are third in title odds at +600 (14.3% chance). NBA analysts Bill Simmons and Marc Stein reported that two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo could be on his way to helping them in their championship pursuit.

Marc Stein confirms Simmons reports on Giannis and the C's:

“Bill beat me to it, he was the first one to talk about Giannis’ interest in Boston and from everything I’ve heard the last 2-3 weeks, his report was spot on.”
(@ALLCITY_NBA) https://t.co/WaIplQxvqB

— CelticsMuse (@CelticsMuse) June 15, 2026

It’s common for league champions to open as favorites in futures markets for the following season. However, the Knicks - whose 13-game winning streak set the second-longest mark in a single postseason - are only fourth at +750 (11.8% chance). Those odds are longer than the +700 price at which they opened last season, per Sports Odds History.

Odds, trends

NBA conference odds also project two-horse races in the East and the West.

In the Western Conference, the Thunder (+140) have a very small advantage over the Spurs (+145). The combined implied probability of those two outcomes is 82.5%, meaning that nearly five times out of six, either one of these teams should win the conference.

The Celtics (+210) lead the Eastern Conference in futures odds, just ahead of the Knicks (+260). The combined implied probability is a hair over 60%, or three-in-five.

Only one other team in either conference has odds in the triple digits; the Detroit Pistons, the East's best team in the regular season, are listed at +900.

The NBA is riding an eight-year streak without a repeat champion. It hasn’t had a back-to-back conference winner during that time either, and only three teams - the Celtics, Heat, and Golden State Warriors - won their respective conference twice.

If bettors assume the streak of new champions continues, the NBA championship odds favorite would be the Pistons (+2,500).

The Minnesota Timberwolves (+3,300), Pacers (+3,500), and Cleveland Cavaliers (+3,500) would be next in line. Any one of those teams winning the Finals would mark the longest preseason underdog champion since the 2014-15 Warriors (+2,800).

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here and view our best betting sites or check out our top sportsbook promos.

James Dolan is recognizing the contributions of the Knicks’ significant others.

The Knicks owner spoke to his team on April 3 before their playoff run that ended Saturday with a 94-90 win over the Spurs that clinched the team’s first championship since 1973.

At the time, Dolan assured his players that, should the Knicks bring home the championship, their significant others will also be receiving championship rings in recognition for their contributions and support to the team.

“When we win the championship, we will get rings. When we get rings, so will they,” Dolan told his team.

“I will buy a ring for each one of your significant others, because their contributions are very important to this team win.”

Dolan had jokes too.

“If you don’t have a significant other, most of you do, find someone that you’re sharing this journey with for the next 10 weeks,” Dolan said, which was met with laughs from around the room.

When the Knicks won their championship on Saturday, Dolan, who has owned the team since 1999, addressed Knicks fans everywhere with an apology.

“Hey, New York, I’m sorry it took so long,” Dolan said as the team was presented with the Larry O’Brien trophy, its first in 53 years. “But here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again. Yeah!”

After falling behind 2-1 in their first-round series against the Hawks, the Knicks reeled off 13 straight wins and lost just once in that span on their way to defeating the Spurs 4-1 in the Finals.

The Knicks finished the playoffs with a point differential of +283, the biggest in NBA history.

What's the latest on Giannis and Jaylen? O'Connor offers insight originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Milwaukee Bucks are widely expected to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo sometime in the next week. According to several recent reports, the Boston Celtics are frontrunners to land the two-time NBA MVP.

By all accounts, Antetokounmpo is intrigued by the idea of playing in Boston, but acquiring him would almost certainly require the C’s parting ways with 2024 NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown. It likely wouldn’t be a simple swap between Boston and Milwaukee, however.

“Giannis wants to win. What team offers him the best opportunity to win? In all likelihood, the Boston Celtics,” Yahoo Sports’ NBA insider Kevin O’Connor said on Monday’s Early Edition. “It’s just going to be a matter of, can the Celtics find an appropriate third team to land Jaylen Brown?

“It seems like all indications are the Milwaukee Bucks don’t want Jaylen Brown as their key return. They’d rather have a haul of picks, multiple pieces, rather than just Jaylen Brown. I doubt Jaylen Brown would even want Milwaukee either at this point in his career. He wants to win somewhere else.”

The Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Los Angeles Clippers have often been mentioned as potential partners for Milwaukee and Boston in a three-team deal. Boston would get Antetokounmpo, the third team would get Brown, and Milwaukee would get draft capital and young pieces to help jumpstart its rebuild.

The Miami Heat have also reportedly been in the mix to acquire Antetokounmpo. Wherever the 10-time All-Star goes, the team that lands him will still have work to do.

“It can’t be just Giannis. There would have to be more moves to follow,” O’Connor said. “So I think for the Celtics, if they get Giannis, it’s going to be a matter of, what’s next after that? What other moves are going to completely shake up this roster?”

The Celtics’ roster might get shaken up even if they don’t end up with Antetokounmpo. O’Connor believes president of basketball operations Brad Stevens could move a disgruntled Brown in a different deal.

“I can’t imagine (Brown would) be too happy going back to Boston if they don’t end up landing Giannis Antetokounmpo,” he said. “So I’d imagine that Brad Stevens has at least a Plan B or a Plan C here to flip Jaylen Brown somewhere else for parts. I don’t know what exactly it would be, though.

“The New Orleans package with Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and whatever other pieces, I think, is pretty intriguing with what they could do in (Joe) Mazzulla’s system alongside Jayson Tatum. I think those are winning players that have just been stuck on a losing team.”

Brown and Antetokounmpo are set to make $57 million and $58 million next season, respectively. Tatum will also make $58 million.

Antetokounmpo, who has a $63 million player option for 2026-27, would be eligible to sign a four-year, $275 million extension six months after being traded. As enticing as it is to put him alongside Tatum for the next several seasons, the new collective bargaining agreement makes it difficult to sustain success with multiple expensive superstars.

“Look, the fact is it’s hard to win with two players making $60-plus million. That’s true with Giannis plus Tatum, it’s true with Brown plus Tatum,” O’Connor said.

“We’ve seen the formula in recent years. The Knicks just won the title with a team that played one through 11 sometimes. Last year, OKC vs. Indiana, two teams that were very deep. Boston the year prior was very deep. With a new collective bargaining agreement, perhaps having one superstar-level player surrounded by good players might be the way forward.”

Whether it’s to Boston, Miami, or elsewhere, Antetokounmpo is expected to be moved before the NBA Draft on June 23.

Watch the Early Edition segment in the video player above.